Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year! As this is hands-down Reed's favorite holiday of the year, of course he started planning his costume months ago. He wanted to be a mummy. You'd think this would be a common costume, but neither of our children have ever been mummies before. And what a cheap and easy costume! One $4 sheet from Walmart and we were done. We already had face makeup, so we were good there.

About two weeks ago, Reed said he wanted to be Frankenstein for Halloween. I said, "Reed -- I thought you wanted to be a mummy." He said, "No, Mom, I mean NEXT Halloween!" I told you it was his favorite holiday. Stay tuned for a Frankenstein costume next year.

I took a half-day off from work to prepare. Since the holiday fell on Friday this year, we weren't under any time constraints to be in bed by a certain time, so I thought I'd make it more special. I always want to be (but usually don't attain) the good mom who has cute parties with cute food, etc. So this year, I made:

Mummy Dogs

Creepy Crawlers

Chili Pie and Ghost CupcakesAfter dinner, our mummy got dressed and headed out to get his loot!

Happy Halloween, y'all!

Count Pumpkula!

Reed's school held a pumpkin decorating contest for all of first grade. It was entirely optional, but you could decorate a pumpkin of any size in any manner except carving. Ew, can you imagine the spoilage/smell at the school if they were carved?

So Tim, being the creative projects manager in this household, sat down with Reed over two nights. The idea was all Reed's and most of the execution. Tim helped with the collar and cape.

My idea for a name was Dracu-lantern, but since he wasn't carved, we went with Tim's idea of Count Pumpkula!

Here was the process:

And the final product!

A Car of His Own

We finally found a car for Lane. He despaired of us ever finding one as it was taking sooooo long. Seems that I always found something wrong with every one we saw an ad for or that we went to see. But in early October, we went and looked at a car, drove it and decided it was the one. It's a 1999 Ford Taurus with only 72,000 original miles on it. Lane paid for it with his own money e had earned and was quite proud of that.

After the purchase was made, we took the car to our mechanic so they could look it over. When I went to pick it up, the guy said, "I know I'm being nosy, but can you tell me what you paid for this car?" When we told him, he said, "You got a really good deal. This is a great car." He said it needs an alignment at some point, but had nothing else wrong with it at all.

However, the key word there was "had." Lane didn't drive the car to school the first week he had it as we spent that week transferring the title and obtaining insurance. (Beware all ye out there with sons who will someday become teenagers as ye car insurance premiums will surely double)

So the following week, Monday morning arrives and Mr. Independent is ready to drive to school. And he does, but because he is independent and has his own wheels, he stops at Sonic first. And in backing out of his parking spot to leave, hits a metal railing on the other side of the drive. The car that had nothing wrong with it -- now does. He had condensation on his rear window and couldn't see out of it. He wiped it off, but it kept coming back and he didn't think about the defroster. But hey, if you can't see out of your rear window, just back out anyway and hope for the best!

Before:

After:

It really doesn't look all that bad and he's learned something from it. He wants to have it repaired, so we'll have to get an estimate for it and see how many pennies he'll have to save for that. Though none of us are really worried about that because on any given day, we all know Lane has much more available cash than his parents!